RIP USS John F Kennedy CVA-67

The http://navysite.de/cvn/cv67.htm" [Broken] will be decommissioned on 23 March 07.

She was my home from Sept '71 to Sept '73. I spent 15 of those months deployed to the Mediterranean. Our 10 month deployment from Dec '71 to Oct '72 stood as the longest cruise until the Nimitz returned from the Persian gulf in '05. We were scheduled to leave Norfolk Va. for a West Pac deployment in Apr of '73 but that was cancelled along with the Vietnam war. I still blame Nixon for canceling my round the world cruise. My enlistment ended in Sept '73 so I figured about the time the ship was getting to the shores of Vietnam I would get out.

I apologize for the lack of image quality, these were taken with a Minox, the one and same type of camera you will see James Bond use to take illicit images of documents. The negitive size is fingernail size, about 3x5 mm. In addtion the prints are 35yrs ond. I have done some color correction.

I was safty backup for the Tacan tech working on the antenna dome at the very top of the mast.

http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/EAM/Mar14_01.jpg [Broken]
This is a shot from the mast over the port quarter. A call to port quarters meant that you could empty your garbage can off of the weatherdeck on the port side of the stern. We would leave a trail of red bobbing coke cans miles long.
We are looking across the flight deck with arresting gear visible as the 3 parallel lines crossing the strip. Note that there are no planes spotted on the runway, we are ready to retreive.

http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/EAM/Mar14_02.jpg [Broken]
This shot over the bow shows a squadron spotted on the 2 bow cats. Note the men waking across the flight deck near a rectanual box painted on the flight deck, these are the deflection plates that raise during a launch to redirect the exhaust gases of jets.

http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/EAM/Mar14_03.jpg [Broken]
Note the radar antenna in the lower left corner. The story goes that one of my shipmates working on that radar dropped a wrench into one of those radomes parked there.

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Ahh! Home Sweet home, looking aft over the starbord side. My berthing area was 2 decks down about the center of this pic. Note the line of F4s spotted with their tails outboard and the one F4 spotted at an angle to the rest bejind a white dashed line painted on the flightdeck. That plane is in the engine test spot. The jet mecanics would spot a plane there to test the jet engines/ afterburners. I am sure many of you oldtimers remeber haveing (or being) the teenager tinkering with his hot rod engine... give the kid a jet engine. By the way I did usually work the graveyard shift!
http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/EAM/May09_13.jpg [Broken]

Thanks for the pictures and thank you for your service. My nephew is career Navy and over the past 10 years or so he has been sailor of the year for his ship, his group, his fleet, etc. He has served on specialized ships, like sub rescue vessels, but has served most of his time on these floating airports. He doesn't get back to Maine often, and usually, his time off cannot easily be coordinated with that of his wife (also Navy), so we see him and his beautiful daughter every couple of years.

http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/EAM/JFK1s.JPG [Broken]
Looking over the starboard side of the island. What you see is the top of the stacks, we had 8 boilers generating over 200,000 Hp driving 4 screws.

Now if I can just get Zz to hold a pic from the mast of an aircraft carrier contest!

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Here is Dave Kopper a good friend and execellent tech working on the Tacan antenna. Note the finger covering the upper left.

Hey, you sunk my battleship! :rofl: (I couldn't resist...it took me a moment to figure out what all those numbers were and the first thing that came to mind was the game...blame the illness I'm coming down with for such slow thinking. )

Hey, you sunk my battleship! :rofl: (I couldn't resist...it took me a moment to figure out what all those numbers were and the first thing that came to mind was the game...blame the illness I'm coming down with for such slow thinking. )

Staff: Mentor

Thanks for your service, Integral. We owe you a lot. Thanks for the pic, Cyrus, that brought a tear to my eye.

Thanks for the thoughts. I have trouble relating to many other Vietnam era vets; I was touring the Med while the real vets were living in the Vietnam mud. I am little more then a draft dodger who found the perfect dodge. Uncle Sam paid for my college education to boot.